AppHarvest, Inc. announced the appointment of Appalachian Regional Healthcare (ARH) president and CEO Hollie Harris Phillips as an independent director of the company and a member of the audit committee, effective immediately. Phillips has served as president and CEO of the 14-hospital healthcare system, which includes multi-specialty physician practices, home health agencies, home medical equipment stores and retail pharmacies since 2021. Phillips joined the ARH system in 2002 as director of planning and soon was promoted to chief strategy officer.

During her two-decade career with ARH, Phillips has overseen the organization's strategic planning, marketing, business development, service excellence, philanthropy, government relations and grants functions. Her leadership has resulted in improved access to care and enhanced financial performance of net revenue annually. Phillips earned a master's in health administration from the Medical College of Virginia and a bachelor's in biology from the University of Richmond in Richmond, Va.

Phillips fills a board seat vacated by Anna Mason who resigned in conjunction with pursuing a new career opportunity. AppHarvest currently sells to the top 25 national grocery store outlets as well as to select restaurants and food service providers through its distributor. AppHarvest's flagship Morehead, Ky., farm has been harvesting since January 2021, and is expected to start harvesting its third season of tomatoes in the fourth quarter.

Last week, the company announced commercial shipments from its new 15-acre Berea, Ky. salad greens farm featuring a "touchless growing system" with autonomous harvesting. The company soon expects to announce the opening of its 30-acre Somerset, Ky.

berry farm, where the team already has planted nearly one million strawberry plants for its upcoming season.AppHarvest also continues construction on its 60-acre Richmond, Ky. farm, which, upon completion, is expected to double the company's capacity to grow tomatoes. Combined with the Morehead farm, the Richmond facility is expected to enable the company to grow about 1.5 million tomato plants per season.

The AppHarvest Richmond farm also is expected to start operating before the end of 2022. About AppHarvestAppHarvest is a sustainable food company in Appalachia developing and operating some of the world's largest high-tech indoor farms with robotics and artificial intelligence to build a reliable, climate-resilient food system. AppHarvest's farms are designed to grow produce using sunshine, rainwater and up to 90% less water than open-field growing, all while producing yields up to 30 times that of traditional agriculture and preventing pollution from agricultural runoff.

AppHarvest currently operates its flagship farm -- about the size of 50 football fields -- in Morehead, Ky., producing tomatoes. The company is developing a network of farms to produce a variety of vine crops, salad greens and berries with three more farms currently under construction that are expected to be operational by the end of 2022.